CHAPTER 2Embrace Your Defining Moments: A Bright Future Is Only Built Upon the Foundations of Your Past
Un pour tous, tous pour un.
(All for one and one for all.)
—Alexandre Dumas, in his legendary 1844 novel The Three Musketeers
My father, Stuart Pierre, emigrated from Haiti to America on September 22, 1969, fleeing poverty and repression under the oppressive rule of dictator François Duvalier, also known as Papa Doc. My mother would soon come over once my father settled and earned enough money to bring her to America. He worked tirelessly to create a house and a home for my brother and me. I remember hearing him from time to time head to his union job at 4:00 in the morning. He worked a grueling morning and afternoon shift in the kitchen of a nursing home preparing meals for elderly patients.
Once home, he would quickly change clothes and start another one of his many jobs. This one was his own business. He started a cleaning company and hired other Haitian immigrants, who helped him clean various business offices and homes around town. On the days that I got to accompany him on his cleaning route, I remember us arriving home well after midnight. I could not help but think that while we both headed to bed exhausted from the long day, he was scheduled to wake up only a few hours later to repeat the grueling schedule once again. All in the name of his family.
Despite his toils, I grew up in an America that was still ambiguous about my father's entrance into this country. ...